Page 77 of Every Heartbeat After

I’m not handy enough to know if those tools will work, but if Mauricio is suggesting them, that’s enough for me. “Perfect. Will you go get them, please?”

ChapterThirty-One

Tess

Despite thinkingit’d never happen, I must eventually succumb to one of the waves of exhaustion that rises up between each bout of tears. The sound of a door snicking shut pulls me from sleep, and I bolt upright, half expecting to see Kit standing in my doorway.

But it’s not him, and I’m not where I expect to be. I’m in the living area, where the pull-out couch has been made up into a bed just for me. And my dad is taking a seat at the edge of the thin mattress.

“Daddy?” I blink twice in confusion, expecting him to disappear. Why? I don’t know. There’s just some voice in the back of my mind whispering, insisting his presence here is impossible.

The milky morning light brings out the silver that’s beginning to fleck his brown hair. He offers his signature smirk and reaches forward to ruffle my hair. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I figured you’d be awake by now.”

The strangest sense of déjà vu sends a shiver down my spine. “Did we have something planned?”

“No, but then, we never do.” He smiles, flashing the same effortlessly white teeth that my friends at school envy me for.

Or used to? Why does it seem so long ago that I last saw them? School only let out for the summer a couple weeks ago, right?

Dad’s silver-blue gaze roams my features, and the corners of his mouth dip. “What’s wrong? Today is a happy day.”

I shake my head. Nothing inside me feels happy. “But why?”

“Because”—he claps his hands together quietly—“we’re going home!”

I glance at the clock on the microwave, as though it will orient me to the right day rather than time. “I thought we didn’t leave until tomorrow?”

He sighs and folds his hands over one knee. “Sometimes you have to go before you think you’re ready. But it’ll be okay, kiddo. I promise.”

Confusion settles like a fog over my mind, submerging all my thoughts in heavy syrup until it seems as though I’ll never be able to pluck them out.

“I don’t understand,” I say, sounding younger than I expect to now that I’m listening to myself more intently. “Why is it a happy day if we’re leaving? You love it here.”

“I love it here because it’s where you and Mom are. Here’s the thing about that, though, Tess: you’re also everywhere else.”

My mouth tries to form a response, but before words can trudge from my mind to my lips, another voice interrupts.

“My two early birds.”

Dad and I glance up at the same time. Mom leans in the threshold that leads to their bedroom, arms folded over some faded T-shirt of Dad’s that she’s using as a nightgown. Her long legs are bare and tan even in the pale light. For some reason the sight of her makes my heart ache. I reach up to rub at the knot in my chest, and something on my hand glitters. Rings. My fingers are covered in rings, just like Mom’s.

She notices at the same time I do, shaking her head thoughtfully. “Isn’t it crazy, Ted? There’s so much of us in her, and yet she’s become someone else that’s all her own.”

Dad grumbles his agreement in a low timbre that’s heart-wrenching in its familiarity. “And all those parts that are so different are the ones I love the very best.”

I’m startled by a sudden knock. Mom’s fist rests against the doorjamb, and she looks just like me when she says, “I’m really sorry, Tess.”

“For what?” I ask, pulling the blanket higher up my torso.

“So sorry,” Dad adds. Mom knocks again.

“It’s okay. I’m okay with leaving. Just don’t go.” I don’t know why I add the last part. They wouldn’t leave without me, would they?

Of course not. It’s always been the three of us. Sometimes more, but never less.

“Sorry, but it’s time to go,” they say in unison, sounding at once so close and yet very far away. I squeeze my eyes shut so I won’t have to watch them go.

When I open my eyes again, the room is different. Right, but in its rightness, so wrong. My parents are gone. I’m back in the king-size bed in my normal room. And it’s Kit’s voice, instead of theirs, that drifts through the closed door to my hotel suite.

---